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When Cleombrotus had expounded these matters, Heracleon said, There is no unsanctified or irreligious person present, or anyone who holds opinions about the gods that are out of keeping with ours; but let us ourselves be stringently on our guard lest we unwittingly try to support the argument with extraordinary and presumptuous hypotheses. That is a very good suggestion, said Philip, but which of the theses of Cleombrotus makes you the most uncomfortable?
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That it is not the gods, said Heracleon, who are in charge of the oracles, since the gods ought properly to be freed of earthly concerns; but that it is the demigods, ministers of the gods, who have them in charge, seems to me not a bad postulate; but to take, practically by the handful, from the verses of Empedocles Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 267, Empedocles, no. b 115. sins, rash crimes, and heaven-sent wanderings, and to impose them upon the demigods, and to assume that their final fate is death, just as with men, I regard as rather too audacious and uncivilized.